I'm growing in grace day by day
I'm learning to yield each step of the way.

The storm has subsided,
The wind has died down,
The sea is calm,
The sun is shining through,
The clouds have gone,
And the sky is blue,

I'm just basking in the freedom ,
Of all the things I've learned by being in Your Kingdom,
The peace, the tranquility, the rest,
And reflecting on the seeming insurmountable trials of the last test
All the time holding on to you,
Determined and knowing you would see us through.

So, what do I do now as I rest,
I don't want to lose sight of you ,
Just because I'm not in a test,
Or perhaps this is the test,
To stay close to you,
After the storm has passed.

Please Lord, don't let me slip away,
I pray I'll continue to grow closer with each passing day,
Please keep my love fresh and joy-filled and new,
As I sail in these skies so blue.

It seems unusual not to have a trial or a test,
To be able to sit back and rest,
It seems too good to be true
How do I handle this, it's all new,

What's around the corner that I can't see,
This tranquility is so unusual, how can it be,
Is it a false rest, how long before this shall pass,
For nothing this peaceful can long last.

Don't let me slip, don't let me move away,
Keep me on my knees continuing to pray,
Keep the urgency in the attitude of my heart,
To read your word so truth you can continue to impart.

I know I don't need the emotion, I know that,
But the joy of knowing your delight when I sit close with you,
And the joy I have when I experience that delight,
This is the joy of the Lord giving me strength
Staying close in the easy time may very well be the biggest test,
Keep me close, Lord,
As I continue to grow as I rest rest.

Past journal entry

​Shame is a Flight from Intimacy
                Shame is one of our deepest and most painful emotions.  Shame tells me I’m undone – or rather, I’m done – it’s over.  The voice of condemnation rises, and I am now tainted and completely unacceptable to myself, to others and to God.  I will be isolated and mocked forever!
Nothing cuts us to the core quite like shame.  Jean Paul Satre calls it, “a hemorrhage of the soul.”  We hide, as I mentioned in the last blog, as Adam and Eve chose to do. It was the first thing they did when they realized the consequences of their choice to disobey God.  Shame is a feeling of being exposed as “ugly and unacceptable” beyond words or comprehension. Shame takes its razor-sharp edge and cuts down to the very core of who I believe myself to be, like nothing else. Rejection and shame lock arms together to destroy self-worth. It is the experience of being caught without defense or cover and condemned to unrelenting humiliation.  We hide…and continue to build the seed-coat covering (that protective barrier we erected in our FOO (family of origin) to protect our heart), and we spend our energy insulting and replaying tapes trying to insulate ourselves from anything or anyone that could possibly provoke exposure and reveal to others what we now believe about ourselves. This stifles intimacy.  This is when shame justifies avoidance and isolation. Contempt is eager to jump on the band wagon.  Contempt for ourselves, turns to contempt for others who have hurt us, and we lash out and blame.
          When was the last time you felt shame?  Was it when you got called into your supervisor’s office, and had to admit you did something wrong?  Was it when your child misbehaved in some public venue, and you felt the eyes of everyone labeling you as an incompetent parent?  Was it a time when you failed miserably to live up to a vow, and a past promise you made to yourself?  Sort of like Peter, “I’ll lay down my life for you.”  Then he denied Jesus three times.  You are horribly aware that you failed your own perfectionism and you failed to meet what you knew was right in your heart and God’s directives plainly explained in the Bible.  Other times shame comes at the hands of someone else that shatters your heart.  During my middle school years, sitting on the couch with my sisters and a cousin cutting up, acting silly, etc.  My mom, standing in the middle of the room watching, suddenly blurted out, “Carol, bless you sweetheart, you are so ugly!”  I was shocked…as was everyone else.  My uncle, dad of my cousin sitting with us, my mother’s brother, corrected her, but the damage was already done.  It was if the air got sucked out of the room…everything stopped momentarily; it just hung there until it burned a hole in my heart, but then life went on. Nothing was ever said about it again. 
           Last week I mentioned that shame is a “painful absorption with self.”  In this case, shame turned inward on me, and I only viewed myself from the dot of shame that was put on me as it spread throughout my psyche from the center of my being and consumed me.  I carried this horrific shame for a very long time.  If, I’m ugly, even to my own mom, I reasoned, I must be really ugly.  I have wondered what might have caused my mom to say something like that.  When you consider the reality, none of us could probably say we were beautiful in middle school, but that is beside the point, isn’t it?  People who carry shame pass it on.  I wonder what kind and how much shame my mother carried for her to say that.
I have since made peace with all of that mostly because I choose to believe I am accepted in the beloved and my Heavenly Bridegroom thinks I’m beautiful, and so did my husband.  When I was about 47, years old, and 30 years of marriage, while talking with my husband he said, “Carol, you are more beautiful today than the day I met you!”  I had to stop, and in split second timing, I chose to receive that.  It is through relationships we are broken, and it is through relationships we are healed, along with the choice to believe the truth. 
It is very difficult to receive when you have been wounded and have swallowed the lie that you are far from, well let’s forget pretty – shall we say – far from acceptable.  Maybe you did not have a human on this earth to reassure you that you are cherished.  That does not mean you cannot learn to accept what your heavenly Father’s love and adoration, what your heavenly Bridegroom believes about you, and that indeed you are accepted in the beloved.   Last blog I mentioned that there is an anecdote for shame.  We do not have to carry it around with us.
 
The anecdote to shame is brokenness. 
          The power of shame is never crushed by defending our goodness or our dignity, nor is it melted by sitting in its bucket and allowing the lie to become our identity.  Rather it is melted in sorrow when we are overwhelmed that it exposes the idol we have erected.  We and others will make grievous mistakes which will bring on a torrent of shameful emotions. We find repentant sorrow when we face our failure and move beyond its horizontal cause and effect. Shame keeps me locked in a sea of rejected unacceptability. I must look shame in the face to deal with the tragic consequences of its idolatrous foundation and acknowledge, “I am broken,” and embrace just how truly broken I am, then lay the idol and the reality of my brokenness at the cross. When brokenness is accepted, and I lay down the idol I’ve created and believed that I’m not that bad; I am broken with the reality that I need a Savior, Jesus, who sacrificed his life and I can come to Him.  He will break the chain shame holds me in.  The only approach to shame is receiving the grace from God that heals as I recognize I’m lost and undone. I choose to receive the grace of God that heals.  I am beautiful and acceptable to Him.
         This was a new thought for me…Shame is idolatry?  Hmmm, very interesting!  This is indeed a different kind of thinking; something I had never considered. Shame is my idol?   Ponder this truth and how God desires to break the chains of shame to enable you to live free. 
          Stay tuned.
Taken from, The Cry of the Soul
Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III

I am questioning my worth
I’m wondering about love
Jesus said he would return
But the question haunting my mind?
Am I worth returning for?
I’ve sinned so greatly
I lost my way more than once
I just don’t know
And the question remains
Am I worth coming back for?
I took the hammer
I took the nails
The cross? I nailed him there
I am too aware, and the question replays
Am I worth coming back for?
I threw myself down
Searching for a point
Lower than the ground
I’m lost and undone
Please God, I long to hear you say
YOU ARE worth coming back for.
I lay there lost in my fear
Crying tears of shame and I long and 
I strain to hear Him
Assuring me of his love
Calming my fear
Taking my shame
You Are worth coming back for.
Remember I sacrificed my life
My broken body pained and alone
On the tree I created for you
While your heart had turned to stone
Alone and separated from my Father
I’m alone but I groan
It is finished!
I missed it for so long 
I’m hearing it now 
I can see the sacrifice 
It is just for me
Now I can see 
Now I hear
You ARE worth coming back for. 
I hear His still small voice say…
You are definitely worth it
And its YOU I'm coming back for!
 
Inspired by the Holy Spirit 
Penned by Carol Greenberg 1978

AND MY ANSWERED PRAYER
      Eugene V. Greenberg Jr. enlisted in the army in February 1966.  He went to Germany and served two tours in Viet Nam.  On December 3, 1968, he was 100% disabled by friendly fire.  But God deemed that he would not die on a hill in Vietnam.   
      He returned home from Vietnam like all other Veterans, broken, hurt, and disillusioned in serving his country with the reality of what they were doing being tainted with all the controversy over Vietnam.  More than 2,700,000 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 were killed or reported missing. Estimates of Vietnamese deaths range over 1 million.
      Lingering impacts of the war are important, and Memorial Day provides a particularly appropriate time for reflection. Our soldiers did not receive a “Welcome Home,” or a “Thank you for your service.”  Instead he and his comrades were ridiculed and called “baby killers!’  He experienced survivor’s guilt.  He grieved over one of his buddies who just received pictures of his new baby, and was killed in action the next day along with all the others who seemingly sacrificed their lives for naught.  His anger and disillusionment led him to destroy his medals.  Married in December 1969 we had two wonderful and adorable sons, but life was tough.  He struggled with PTSD and had difficulty holding down a job and continued to have health problems from his disability.  Further, Gene was very angry at God.  As a child he knew two things about God…God is all powerful, and God is all loving.  He had a very hard time reconciling the horrific things he saw in Vietnam, particularly the little children the Viet Cong maimed and killed to accomplish their purposes. 
 
      I knew Vietnam was the issue, but he refused to talk about it, get help for it, or deal with any of it.  So, I began to pray, “God do whatever it takes to break open the pain of Vietnam and force him to deal with all of it.” God answered that prayer one day in 1985 when the phone rang.  Little did I know God was in the background orchestrating as only He can.  The person on the other end of the line asked to speak to Eugene Greenberg.  This was the first odd thing about this phone call.  No one called Gene, by Eugene.  Not his family, not his co-workers…no one.  Gene came to the phone, he said hello and said almost nothing before dropping the phone.  At this point he put his head in his hand and tears came!  Obviously, my anxiety went off the charts, as I’m wondering what in the world could this be since I knew it was not his family.  I had no idea this was the answer to my prayer. 
      As it turned out, this man was one of Gene’s Vietnam buddies, Kenneth Fife. This man had been searching for him for a while, putting ads in newspapers and trying to locate Gene.  Over the next few months he and Gene began to talk regularly.  One night, during one of their conversations, he revealed to Gene that he thought he was responsible for the disaster that ensued on that hill in Vietnam on December 3rd.  He stated he was responsible for the coordinates that caused the round to fall short killing several and wounding many including Gene.  This was a game-changer for Gene.  He suddenly realized there was someone carrying a heavier burden than him.  He decided to go to Wyoming to see Ken. 
      My prayer…whatever it takes, Lord for Gene to face Vietnam was the very thing that broke open the sealed box in the basement where the contents continued to spew out into the living room.
      Gene and Ken continued to speak and Gene even flew out Wyoming to visit face to face with his past.  It started the healing journey.  Then early 1998 we received another telephone call.  It was from another Viet Nam Buddy, Bobby Moody.  This started another long conversation for Gene.  Members began searching for all of the 5th Division members and planned a reunion in September of that year.  Gene was going to go, but then had second thoughts and decided not to attend.  The following year, we both attended the Society of the 5th Division Reunion and Gene discovered from his Captain that Ken had nothing to do with what happened.  The round that caused such disaster was defective and it landed short.  Friendly fire, that left several dead and others seriously wounded, but no one’s fault.  Gene lost his left leg immediately and almost lost his left arm.  He was air lifted to the hospital ship Repose, and then to Japan.  The doctors wanted to amputate his left arm stating it would be useless, but he refused that option and gained more use of it than they ever thought possible.  This phone call was the answer to my prayer and began Gene’s healing journey.  As  these men  came together, visited, shared community and created a lot of joy to be together and realize they were all alive and doing well, living life in the shadow of the cross and allowing God to heal their wounded hearts so many years later.
      So this Memorial Day, I’m still celebrating the hero of my life, my husband, Gene Greenberg, Jr. and how God still orchestrates and answers prayer.  I feel very appreciative that Gene chose me to do life with him, and God orchestrated our life together to “grow us up” into the persons He intended us to be. 
     Our boys are also very proud of their dad.  He is their hero and together on this Memorial Day we celebrate together our Hero, when you realize the trauma he experienced on the other side of the world, yet came home, and fought hard to overcome and live productively. My oldest grandson, Joshua Cole, joined the Army this year and just graduated from engineer boot camp from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and is now in California for further training.   Cole even questioned, “I wonder what Grampa would think now?  We assured him Grampa would be as proud of him as we are.
                 
     We are blessed, and we continue to appreciate and thank those who sacrificed more than we will ever know to protect us and our freedoms.  Freedom is never free.  There is always a sacrifice.

Painful absorption with self:
           Shame creates an absorption with self that can make us feel as if we are drowning in quicksand. This is because self-awareness is now on hyper alert.  The focus is on me.  My eyes are turned inward to see the deed of shame that I committed. Shame shakes the very ground or core of our being of who we really thought we were, but now has been exposed reveal we are not who we believed ourselves to be. Our core identity, the self, we must now face, and that cannot be done without dire consequences.  Therefore, we begin to attack ourselves with name calling to match our flawed dignity.  I’m stupid, I’m an idiot, I’m trash, I’m nothing, I’m worthless and fit for nothing.  No one will ever want me…. you fill in the blank.  What do you say to yourself that is probably worse than anyone else would say to you?
          We are reminded that shame depicts the attack on our core identity and how it alters our countenance.  It is our face that sets us apart from any other person.  When shame is felt in the heart it first shows up on the face which reddens and loses radiance and vitality.  Then we begin to feel it internally in our gut and has the potential to all kinds of damage there. Remember when God came to confront Cain after he killed his brother, God asked, “Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen?” Obviously, anger, shame, and guilt was written all over his face.  Isaiah declares in 29:22, “No longer will Jacob be ashamed no longer will their faces grow pale.   Then in Psalms 44:15, “My disgrace is before all day long, and my face is covered with shame.” Cover their faces with same so that men will seek your name, O Lord. May they ever be ashamed and dismayed. May they perish in disgrace.” Ps 83:16-17

Flight from Exposure:
         The second signpost of shame is hiding.  We retreat. We withdraw. We isolate. This was the first negative emotion in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned, they got away as fast as they could to hide in the bushes, the very blessings that God had provided for them.

       Go back and remember when the last time something happened that brought you some embarrassment. Embarrassment is a lighter form of shame and probably one that can move through the brain’s pain processing pathway  to the other side. However, shame goes much deeper and is more difficult to manage.  If you felt shame didn’t you feel like wanting to get away as fast as possible?   Shame prompts a flight to some self-created world of safe numbness.  Dissociation is a fancy word that causes one to retreat, sometimes by decision but other times it is how God created us to be able to handle heavy hard-core shame, when it is beyond our capacity to process it.  Some events are outside our window of tolerance to be able to process as our brain tries to process and make sense of the painful event.  Other times it is a choice that we will escape by thinking that we can flee to the safety of our own creation – a place where I can escape my inner agony, my own little false creation without pain or demands of God’s world. It is a place outside of reality.  It is here that addictions and a myriad of unhealthy behaviors begin, when the realization that a drink, a drug, or something else I use to extreme, will ease the agony and inner shame that is burning in me like a furnace that continues to be fed by my negative thoughts and fears.  All eyes are on me and if they are not, I walk in fear that someone will find out what I’ve done. This behavior perceives the enemy far worse than it is and this escape that provides me only momentary relief ends up only increasing my shame and makes looking into the eyes of another or the ugliness of myself that much more incomprehensible.  Consequently, any flight to escape to invisibility will fail and require more aggressive methods to stem the hemorrhage.  This position of hiding and withdrawing gives the enemy of your soul more power and more ability to continue to weave his wicked web inside your heart and mind until it grows to consume you. His goal is to destroy.  The real enemy is pride. 

      Be well and be blessed as you turn your eyes toward the only one that can heal your heart of shame.  There is an anecdote to shame. 
Stay tuned.
 

 


​

      As Christ's disciples, we are simply called to obey him --at any cost and with no assurance of the results.
Only God can bring forth eternal fruit from the seeds of our obedience.  And he often does so in ways that we do not expect and cannot fathom, and fail to experience due to our lack of faith and disobedience. His wisdom and ability are infinitely, not marginally, greater than our own.  This truth is both humbling and freeing.  What is God calling you to today?  If you find yourself stuck in fear and worry, stop!  Take that thought captive, telling your thoughts or perhaps Satan's thoughts to leave the holy ground you are standing on because he has no authority there.  Then get up and take the next step to fulfill that which he is calling you to today.  You have the same Holy Spirit in you that raised Jesus from the dead.  Stand on that, believe, and take the authority you already have at your disposal and walk in obedience experiencing the freedom Jesus died for you to walk in. Make it a GREAT DAY.

               The time was mid-afternoon. The sun was shining hot and bright. When I walked into the first bedroom, the sun came in through the window at a certain angle. The painters always taped off the window frame and left the center of the window exposed. Thus, the paint and wall texture covered the center of this window. No light could shine through this part of the window, although you could see it was there, trying to shine through all around the edges. As I stood there and looked at that window, God revealed a parallel of that window that represented our lives.

Cleaning the inside of the cup
               The paint, being only in the center of the window, represents our hearts darkened with the sin-nature we are all born with, inherited from Adam. The light was shining all around the edges. This represents God’s presence. His creation, His invisible attributes, and the blessings in our lives through others. Regardless of how we view our surroundings, they all are an attempt to draw us to Himself. It matters not how successful you are, how good your grades are, or who your parents are. We are born with a body that is alive; however, we have a spirit that is dead, and a wicked heart that needs regenerating. Unfortunately, we can socialize the behavior, but the heart remains unchanged. "The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Once we realize we cannot “fix” ourselves, we accept the sacrifice of Jesus, who died in our place on a cruel cross. By confessing our guilt and by accepting Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf, we now have a new spirit. Just as I removed the paint from this window, God removes our sin, then and only then can God’s light begin to shine through us.

               Just as that window will have no recollection of the paint that was on it, likewise, God chooses not to remember our sin. It isn’t that He forgets, He chooses not to remember. God cleanses us from the inside out and places His Spirit in us. Unfortunately, we still have our old sin nature and the false self we created to deal with along with its fleshly, selfish desires. These spots and dirt on this window represented the sins in our life resulting from self-gratification as well as those things we do that we may not even yet be aware of as sin. As God matures us, His Spirit renews our mind by reading His word; we come to realize much of our thoughts, desires, and our way of thinking is opposed to His. It is this process that wages war within us. We become aware of the sin spots on our robe. Then it becomes our responsibility to consciously choose, through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, to align our actions to our new way of thinking, agreeing with Him that our thinking is wrong (confession) and ask forgiveness. We walk in obedience to the new revelation, always achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit. This will be a life-long process.

The smears
               When cleaning windows, there are always smears. These smears represent the difficult areas in our life that we have selfishly held onto that leave serious emotional conflicts within our heart and soul. There we must spend extra time “cleaning” them. These emotional scars, like smears on the window, may not always be readily noticeable or even discernible by us. Much of the time, we are not aware of their presence at all, but allow the “light” to filter in, at just the right angle, and they are very noticeable. Let a trigger occur that reminds me of a painful memory and OOPS! There they are! Often noticed first by others, before we admit that we have a problem. Much of the time, we are too busy pointing our bony finger at someone else we interact with that they are in the wrong, not us! Sometimes our true friends or even our spouses are the ones who point them out to us. Sometimes it is God’s Holy Spirit, and sometimes it may be a counselor trained to show us our emotional smears or “hang-ups.” God sends those people in our lives to help us see these scars, which otherwise will go undetected by us, commonly called “blind spots.”

Permanent flaw?
               This next window had a black mark on it. As I worked and worked on it, I realized this was a permanent flaw in the glass. It was there to stay. If someone were to come from the inside and look out that window at that very spot, it would obscure their vision. However, if one chose to look around it, their view would not be hindered at all. So, it is with us. A permanent flaw on our physical body regardless of what form it might take will distort and obscure our view of the world, if we choose to look at the world through our flaw, or if we choose to identify ourselves by it. However, if we understand that we are made in God’s image, by a God who makes no mistakes and in whose plan includes a perfect place for us, flaw and all, we can then choose to look past that flaw not allowing it to taint my view of others by how I think they perceive me or how I perceive myself. This permanent physical flaw represents the fact that God will sacrifice outward beauty to develop godly inward character in us or others. This allows our inner light to shine even brighter.

Ah, the last one!
               Usually, I’m glad to see the last window after a long day of cleaning windows. Today was different. God engaged me in a lesson directly from Him. I always clean the inside windows first, but not this one. Remember, the window still has paint on the inside, representing our “sin-sick, dead heart.” As I cleaned the outside of this window, God revealed the correlation to our lives when we try to “clean up our act,” behaving differently, socializing our flesh. If we attempt to change our unacceptable activities in the power of our own flesh, with a “sin-sick” heart, we will quickly experience defeat. If by some miracle, we manage to accomplish the task in our own willpower we have a false sense of who we are, and pride is in full gear. We deceive ourselves into thinking we are okay because we have not participated in a particular deed or because we have stopped doing one. God’s word tells us that “our righteousness is as filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) Thus our act of “cleaning” carries no weight with God when done without His grace. We simply look better on the outside. We still do not have access to God’s unlimited power until we give up, admit defeat, realize we cannot save ourselves, clean the inside of the cup first, and recognize we are powerless to win over our sin. Then, and only then, will we have access to God’s grace through the blood of Jesus. This is precisely what I had to do with this window. Admit defeat, go inside, and clean the inside first. My view was distorted and hindered, so no matter how long or how hard I worked, I was unable to get the outside clean with the inside dirty. So, it is with our lives. Our view is so distorted that we are unable to stay clean, becoming very frustrated, always condemning ourselves for our shortcomings and failures, or we blame others and eventually throw up our hands, claiming that “religion just doesn’t work.” And indeed, religion does not work. The frustration becomes so great we resolve that we were better off before. What we do not realize is that trying to clean up the outside first always leads to futility and frustration.

               I love it when God shows up and speaks to me with every day events that reveal spiritual truths. Thank you, Jesus, for this insight.

           When life happens and hard questions and difficulties arise they sometimes leave more difficult questions than answers.

                I was listening to the radio this morning and they were reading the verse about how God takes care of us...because we are his highest creation and if he takes care of the birds of the air, won't he take care of us?  They were discussing this and why we have such a hard time believing that God truly will take care of us.  I wanted to call in and say...DUH...is it not obvious why we have a problem resting in God taking care of us.  Look around...the less fortunate ones that have health issues, financial difficulties, or accidents that they had nothing to do with, necessarily,  Children that are abused, taken advantage of, hurt by some offender, or killed by some disease, or some inhuman being...those things do not fit our idea of being well taken care of, now do they?  The hurt and pain in the world do not translate into "care-taking" by anyone's definition.  Only as we can trust God to take care of us amidst these things, can we lay back in his arms and allow him to carry us through them.  Sometimes that's a tall order. But a view to a different perspective might be in order.  We are looking from our earthly view.  God is looking long-term and he will sacrifice everything to bring us through the dark valley to grow into who He designed us to be.  Larry Crabb suggests it is first-order desire vs second-order desires.  Sometimes we do not even know we have a second-order desire. . . one that God is in charge of to mold us to be the person He created us to be. God's view is looking through a different lens with a view to maturity, trust, and faith, not a view of necessarily getting what we want.

  Disclaimer: If this report fails to agree with another’s recollection, please accept my apology as this is my view from a short window of time and may not coincide with another's.

Captain Donald B. Smallwood passed to his Mansion in the sky on March 10, 2019.  He will be sorely missed.
If you’re interested in reading how God orchestrates our lives...read on.
 
Captain Donald B. Smallwood was my husband's captain when he was in Viet Nam in 1968 (although he was not my husband at the time). Reports indicate they were on a Search and Destroy Operation called Pikes Peak 1 when they engaged the enemy in a very bad fire fight. Afterward the men all backed off to what they thought would be a safe distance.  Unfortunately this is when the defective short round from friendly fire landed in their perimeter.  Records state there were three killed and 12 wounded.

I have a letter written to Gene by Captain Smallwood in September of 2000.  I'm quoting...

This is a repeat posting, but It is a relevant topic...

This journey for the past two months has been a process.  Process?  Hmm…some of my clients have come to dislike that word.  But…it is a process and it has been churning beneath the surface for several weeks. I’m reminded of the picture I got while we were at Sea World.  We were waiting for Shamu and his friends to make their grand entrance into the pool in front of us.  The trainers had opened the gate and we were just waiting.  Suddenly the water started to move as if there were some deep undercurrent.  It flowed along in waves as if being stirred from deep within.  As we watched suddenly Shamu and friends began jumping, no flying out of the water to do belly flops or nose dives right in front of us.  Yes, there was definitely movement under the surface.  Getting these thoughts on the page was much like that as they began swirling under the water in the deepest undercurrents of my heart…making it to the surface of my mind in a literal way to splash across the paper.  The process…as God has been orchestrating these thoughts…
keep reading....​

Galatians tells us in 4:22, Sarah represents the Spirit and Hagar represents the flesh. The two women allegorically represent the two covenants, the son (Ishmael) born of the flesh and the son born of the free woman (Isaac) through the promise.  The battle of the flesh will continue to rage until our last breath and until Jesus comes back to take his bride home and there will be no more persecution of his bride.

 See how Paul uses an allegory in Galatians 4:21-29 to teach us a complex idea in a way we can grasp the truth of Sarah and Hagar, and how they represent us.

I just finished reading Phillip Yancey’s book Disappointment with God.  It is quite thought provoking.  For some of the questions he postulated, he provided some observations and possibilities, but for others he gave no answers. And certainly, when we are digging in the “deep,” sometimes blindfolded, trying to understand the mysteries of God, we will come up with no answers to life’s hardest, most thought provoking, and painful questions.
 
Yancey interviewed lots of people facing extremely difficult circumstances. With some, their faith grew deeper and stronger because of the struggles.  With others their faith hit rock bottom like a ship broken apart struck by the turbulent waves of their circumstances, the weight of pain and heartache sent their faith to the depths of the sea along with their dreams.  What is it that keeps one tenaciously holding on to an unseen God, believing He is there in the darkest night of the soul, and others who let go of the rope that tethers them to Him? 

“Me” the person I am is ultimately shaped by whom I love and the pain I attempt to avoid.  As I grow and as my identity is shaped, I constantly, but unconsciously face a conflict within as to which of these emotions will end up controlling me, love or fear.  One of my greatest goals in life is to avoid as much pain as possible and yet I am hard-wired to love; thus, the dilemma to love, or to protect, becomes an unconscious decision and determines much about my emotional development, or the lack thereof. 
 
John tells us “perfect love casts out fear,” (1 John 4:18), and we are created in His image.  We can never be complete and whole and “know who we are until we find our own truest selves in God.” (C.S. Lewis).  God has certain non-transferable attributes, but He does share transferable attributes with us.  In His likeness, we all have a longing for beauty, greatness, fascination, and intimacy.  He created us in love, for love, and to be loved.  In other words, we are hard-wired with a longing for connection, to be seen, noticed, cherished and deeply known.  This creates and “fires off” the joy center located in our right pre-frontal cortex (PFC). God is jealous over us.  (Ex. 20:5).  He knows that it is in our best interest to have a relationship with him; thus, the command to protect our heart from yearning and longing for anything more than we long for Him.
 
Trauma affects all of us in some form or fashion. “Any life event that leaves us feeling alone without help can be experienced as traumatic” (Jim Wilder).  It is not the type or the intensity of the pain alone that determines whether or not events will become traumatic, but feeling alone, with no one to share the impact of our hurt, causes brain circuits to misfire.  In those alone times, if the pain exceeds our mental capacity, we become traumatized.  This is certainly true when we experience painful events as children, since we do not have the capacity to process pain and grief appropriately. Thus, if painful life experiences in the past were not consistently comforted, it can be very difficult to feel we are not alone in the present.  These memories become fragmented and our brain cannot metabolize or process them to a resolution.  They remain fragmented and when something happens that triggers either an implicit or explicit memory, we react in our current relationships in a way that reflects this unresolved pain and aloneness from the past.  We may not even be aware of that or be able to connect the dots, but it is there none the less, for we all have the same brain functions.  For us to process painful experiences they must go through a pain-processing pathway for the brain to fully metabolize them for emotional healing.   The therapy protocol EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) can help with this.

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Oh, God, I’m on your anvil of life
The circumstances you use to shape me, mold me, and break me
Are sometimes more that I think I can bear
My heart is being shredded, ripped apart
 
The pain is great
The nights are long and dark
I have no idea why you have me here
I can’t see to the other side

“Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Jesus, Matt 16:25

“The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering.”  C.S. Lewis

“How can a man born upside down know when he is right side up? G. K. Chesterton 
​
​Love is costly and risky, but well worth it.  As I write that, I can hear you saying, “Duh! Tell me something new, will you?”  Then I imagine you deciding you are not interested in anything else on this page.  However, hang with me for a bit. 

What mountain would you like to cast into the sea? 

It’s a beautiful day and I’m driving into Austin to have lunch with a friend as I listen to a really great song by Lindell Cooley declaring, “I need you more,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa3-XePwrAc. Check out the video.  The best part about this video is that it says…I’ll never leave your side because I never want to go back to my old life and I’ll never be alone….”  I began to reflect on that truth realizing that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same God that indwells me, literally, and I WILL NEVER BE ALONE!  I just sat in the car as I was driving and I reflected on that.  I let it sink deep into my soul and imagined the person of the Holy Spirit taking up residence in my spirit… it was a moment of glorious praise and worship as I embraced that idea in a much deeper way and just sat and worshiped God in a very deep encounter for the next few minutes….in my car.  Worship….
              I then arrive at the restaurant. I don’t see my friend so I wait.  I’m sitting at a table close to the door and looking at a menu when I see an elderly woman walking up to the front door using a white cane.  I considered going to the door to help her, but then I notice that my friend is there.  She opens the door for her and then helps her through the second door. As she walks toward the counter, I hear the lady say that she isn’t sure she knows what to order, and my friend tells her you are close to the register and after she helps her returns to me as I sit in a pool of tears acknowledging the goodness of God to help this lady get where she needs to go.  How brave!  I don’t know how this lady got here…did she take a bus, does she live close…etc? But I was overwhelmed by how brave this lady is.  I was then taken back to 1950s….

​It is an interesting journey and sometimes very painful,
One that is filled with ups and downs
My heart longs for the fulfilment of my dream
My desire
My longing 
Longing to be loved
Longing to be touched deeply
Longing to be
All that I was meant to be
When my desire awakens and my heart reaches out for it
It seems to be just beyond my reach.
It is out there
Out there somewhere
Somewhere…Somewhere, where I cannot reach
It is as if I’m grasping air
My heart aches and my tears fall and my anxiety rises
I twist and turn and think and groan
My mind is torn and goes up and down back and forth
Attempting to figure out how I can get what my longing is…
My dream
I play chess every day, all day
I manipulate and maneuver everything that is manipuable, or maneuverable!
I figure and I constantly rearrange and try to figure this or that.
I cry and fret, and hurt, and question why, how, and what next?
Until I am exhausted.  They say chess players go crazy…
I discover I cannot make anything happen and I’m killing myself trying
Something happens.  I make a move… I step into a forbidden area to achieve my heart’s desire, my goal.
I sit back and feel smug that I have now accomplished a maneuver, I played chess well today…
Or so I thought.
The event comes back to haunt me.